Honors, awards, and gifts

If you receive a travel, best poster, or other similar award outside NIH, you may accept the award. You may also be able to accept funds associated with the award; however, this requires specific reporting and approval process in advance of accepting money, free meeting registration, or reimbursement of your travel expenses.

If you receive an award at a meeting, you may accept the award but should not cash any checks you receive until you return and consult your PI who will assist you in reporting the award and determining whether you may accept the funds.

Resources

• Consult the Guidelines for Non-FTEs (Trainees) for NIH-Related Activities, Outside Activities, and Awards portion of the NIH IRP sourcebook.
• Reach out to your training director.
• Email OITE at [email protected].

The federal government has very strict rules on giving gifts to your supervisors. While these rules generally do not apply to you, they DO apply to your supervisor or other NIH officials, who may be prohibited, by law, from accepting a gift from a subordinate, except in limited circumstances.

Please limit gifts to personal tokens of appreciation and heart-felt cards. Tokens of appreciation may be home-made or small gifts under $20 value.

Reach out to [email protected] with questions.